IMSA: New HPD P2 coupe drawing interest for 2015

Honda Performance Development vice president Steve Eriksen reports interest with the marque's new-for-2015 P2 coupe has surpassed expectation. The ARX-04b chassis, set to replace the current ARX-03b (BELOW) utilized in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, was announced last month and could appear in North America and in international sports car competition.

"What we set out to do with this car was to use sort of an approach like a boutique product, if you will; this is a very special car," Eriksen told RACER. "Although it's cost-capped, the regulations define the costs of the price of the car, although it's cost-capped, we're not making this to sell 20 of them. We have no interest in that because we don't believe that we can support that many cars in the quality manner that teams expect of us and we expect of ourselves.

"Our target has been to sell this to a select group of people that we know have the capability to show it well. That have good drivers, have good funding, a good team. That's been our formula in trying to make sure that wherever we go in racing that we have the success that we believe we are capable of, and so far, the response we've gotten has been exceptionally high."

With an initial run of six cars planned, HPD and its partners at Wirth Research are working on getting the brand's first coupe ready for testing later in the year.

"A handful of cars is about where we're comfortable that we can provide the quality of service we want and have a chance for victory everywhere we go," he continued. "This car really represents the culmination of the things that we've learned since entering sports car racing in 2007 and really haven't had a chance to show since 2010.

"So it's a really an exciting opportunity for us because, essentially, the [ARX-03b] that became cost-capped, it was homologated and then done. You can't change it, you can't make it any faster, no matter what you know, you're stuck with it. And even given as perhaps long in the tooth as some might think the car is, looking at Sebring, we should've won that race. So with the performance enhancements coming with the new car, we can't wait to get out and going when we're ready."